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Posts Tagged ‘gay marriage’

The United States is approaching a definitive answer to what the New York Times calls “one of the great civil rights questions in a generation.” Our Supreme Court agreed to decide if gay marriage must be allowed in all 50 United States. More than 70 percent of Americans already live in places where gay couples can marry. Same-sex marriage is already legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia. Now is the time for positive Supreme Court action.The high court will hear arguments, probably in late April of this year.

This news is a relevant topic for Straight Spouse Connection. Many readers of this blog are middle-aged or older and have already been victimized by societal pressures requiring traditional marriage. Their gay spouses felt compelled to marry to hide their sexual orientation. Many languished in mixed-orientation relationships for decades before one spouse came out. They are already casualties, their damage done. Other younger gay people continue to marry straight partners because of religious beliefs, family, social or career pressures. This news about a Supreme Court decision is germane in all these scenarios.

Though they can’t change their past, many older straight spouses are “paying it forward.” Perhaps their closeted anguish helped build the current momentum toward a definitive decision to honor the dignity of same-sex relationships—to prevent future grief of straight men and women unknowingly entering disastrous mixed marriages.

The future looks brighter for those just entering marriage, gay or straight. Legal recognition of same-sex marriage nation-wide would measurably alleviate gay people’s need to hide their sexual orientation through secrecy, deception, and double lives. It would diminish the significant legal and emotional burdens caused by local discriminatory laws, freeing people to marry as they choose and enjoy legal protections they previously were denied. Thus, legalizing same-sex marriage would mean fewer mismatched couples entering ill-fated gay-straight bonds, with the inevitable pain of discovery.

Legalization of gay marriage in the United States would not be binding anywhere else in the world, but many other countries have preceded us in this decision. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in 18 countries, the earliest acceptance by The Netherlands in 2000. The most recent countries following suit are England, Wales, Brazil, France, New Zealand, and Uruguay in 2013, and Scotland and Luxembourg last year. After years of political posturing and religious protestations, world opinion is leaning toward broader acceptance.

Surely our Supreme Court will see the need, heed the trend, and make a positive decision to sanction gay marriage. If even one mixed-orientation couple can be saved from a doomed marriage, coerced by family, religious, social, or professional pressure, efforts to legalize same-sex marriage have not been wasted.

Straight
spouses and related support organizations are celebrating the August 4, 2010
decision by a California District Court to overturn the infamous Proposition 8,
which denied the right to marry to same-sex couples in that state and enshrined
discrimination in that state’s constitution.

Why is this federal court decision
a win for straight spouses as well? Why
has Prop 8 caused such a firestorm in the Straight Spouse Network and other
such organizations? If gay men and
lesbians have the right to marry partners of the same sex, without prejudicial
judgment by others, there will be fewer mixed-orientation marriages. Legalized gay marriage will help to prevent the
kind of deception and secrecy that cause mixed marriages to dissolve in
personal tragedy.

Following the historic decision in
the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger,
U.S. District Judge Vaughan Walker concluded that Prop 8 violates the United
States’ Constitutional rights of equal
protection and due process. He stated,
“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and
lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”

Jody M. Huckaby, executive director of PFLAG
National summarized, “Equality for one means equality for all.” While this case applies only to California,
it is one more victory in favor of human rights for all. It framed gay marriage as a civil right, not
a moral or religious issue.

Simply stated, when gay people are
not forced by society into closets of secrecy, when they are not bound by
religious, family, and social pressure to marry a partner of the opposite sex,
then mixed-orientation marriages should be less frequent. Heterosexual spouses of gays will no longer suffer
the chaos and heartache we all know so well.

Seven other countries have already
sanctioned gay marriage. The United
States is lagging behind by harboring
institutionalized bias. Gay people are
still the only minority in the U.S.
who suffer legalized discrimination because laws in most states have not
evolved to protect them. While the issue
of gay marriage will undoubtedly end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, the recent victory
over Prop 8 in California is one more
step toward gaining fundamental legal protection from discrimination. This is cause for celebration.

It is no surprise that straight
spouses all over this country are elated to see a symbolic barrier
eliminated. The institution of marriage has
already changed dramatically, though slowly, and the fall of Prop 8 represents
progress toward the elimination of the straight spouse disaster. May legalized prejudice end! May all men and women marry the partner of
their choice, with equal rights for all.
This is our birthright as citizens of the United States of America.